Happy Distraction Videos on Geeky Topics

[jesse_the_k]

are my go-to for letting go of panic in the current moment.

Technology Connections

More than 100 in-depth explorations of everyday technology. Videos range from 8 to 25 minutes, with superb hand-made captions. They're presented by "Alec," aka Mr Connectify. He's a middle-aged midwestern white guy with civil engineering training. He does a great job explaining the design of everyday tech, as well as the societal trade-offs involved in the things we use to bolster our "better living with electricity!" lives. I started with

Closed Captioning: More Ingenious than You Know because of course I did. It finally explained why original-style Line 21 captions aren’t carried over HDMI! It wasn’t a conspiracy — but it was thoughtlessness.

On the street, The LED Traffic Light and the Danger of "But Sometimes!" weighs the long life of LEDs versus the advantages of filament bulbs.

The Senseless Ambiguity of North American Turn Signals turned on a very bright light indeed. I’d subconsciously realized that many autos don’t have yellow turn signals, and this video explains why that’s terrible.

Why Do Switches Make Noise? Even though we’re living in an electronic age, light switches click and clack. Find out why!

Space Heater Nonsense Can’t do better than Alec’s pull quote

Unless my understanding of the universe is deeply flawed, something about space heaters just doesn’t add up. In this video, I talk about that.

The Technology Connections YouTube Channel

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What's your go-to soothing video/music/reading?

Comments

[wordweaverlynn]

This sounds fascinating!

[jesse_the_k]

It's so soothing to witness someone who's clearly spent weeks exploring the minute details of a topic. Sometimes he'll dive deeper into a topic than I can follow -- no calculus in my brain -- but what makes it good entertainment is his complete lack of pompousness. He mocks himself in the captions. The support-crawl in the end titles always includes his bloopers.

[mific]

I love Alec and these vids! Thanks for the links!

Oh, and in case you don't already know them, my other two most soothing Youtubers are

Baumgartner Restoration https://www.youtube.com/c/BaumgartnerRestoration

And Li ZiQi https://mific.dreamwidth.org/129642.html

[jesse_the_k]

Oooo -- Baumgartner is new to me.

I adore LiZiQi, and I think I have you to thank for it. She's recently casually introduced some modern tech and I love how she's not a purist about it. (Was it a power drill, maybe? Ah, an excuse to rewatch.) Also, where do all those adorable puppies and kittens come from?

[motorharp]

Thank you so much for this recommendation! I started watching the cc one and was immediately drawn in.

I was also going to recommend Liziqi. I also like a restoration channel Rescue and Restore https://www.youtube.com/c/RescueRestore/, where you can literally watch paint dry.

Thanks for the link.

[jesse_the_k]

watching paint dry sounds like the perfect soothing item!

[jeshyr]

I have been recently watching Clickspring's recreation of the Antikythera mechanism - it's a gentle topic with no drama and presented gently in almost an ASMR fashion except there's narration too. It's lovely and I play it at 65% or 75% speed depending how my brain is going, which makes it even gentler.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsHnyxfygxA0to4RXv4_jDU2

Shall try some of the other reccs here too. Thanks!

Thanks!

[jesse_the_k]

that looks intriguing.

...and the production values are very high!